To call Ingmar Lee a professional protester is like calling your dentist a practitioner of pain for payment.
Ingmar, a Victoria area resident and (I am pretty sure) taxpayer, is the darling of University (and College) students, the unwaged, the working poor, and those, it seems, too unworthy of living on Bear Mountain… or in the Uplands… or in any privileged enclave too sacred to house the many (and seemingly teeming) population of unwashed on the lower Island.
Because hey, you are either pro-development or your not…
As if it was that easy to pick one side or the other.
But to dismiss Lee as a professional protester and his associates as Welfare bums and Hippies illustrates the utter contempt that most pro-development types feel for Activists of conscience like Ingmar Lee (and, by the way, anyone that doesn’t drive a Hummer or live on Bear Mountain).
Call me crazy but when was it such a big deal to throw up your hands and say: Hey, hang on a second here! How about some open discussion about what is going on around us?
Protest , the last time I checked, was not a crime.
Anyway – The CBC surprised me with an article on Ingmar this morning. It seems that he has taken out a permit on mineral rights for the Bear Mountain region.
Which for a Bum (not my words) like Ingmar — is utterly brilliant.
And we need to take a moment, regardless of our orientation on the subject of development… and credit Ingmar on his stroke of pure genius.
To put aside our differences… just long enough to think a little more clearly.
And think about… where we live. And remember that big development does not have to be painful, is not always necessary and like the dentist should be something we all attend to… when we need to.
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